Daughter of Durin
by Stratagem
Summary: Daughter, sister, princess, exile, warrior, wife, blacksmith, mother, leader. Dis, sister of Thorin Oakenshield, mother of Fili and Kili, has been all of these things, once. She is of the Line of Durin, a descendant of kings, and she must always find the strength to continue when all seems lost. This is her story, from before the Fall of Erebor to the Grey Shores.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Hobbit!

**A/N:** I've been seeing all of these Durin!Family stories, and I really got to wondering about Dis, Thorin's little sister who is the mother of Fili and Kili. So this story will basically follow my take on the story of Dis from before the destruction of Erebor onward; Thorin will be a main character as well, and many of the dwarves from The Hobbit will also be featured (Bofur, Nori, Dwalin and Balin in particular). There will also be lots and lots of Kili and Fili later on, of course! ^_^ Also, with the ages, I'm sort of winging it since the movies and books seem to wildly disagree on how old certain characters are and when things happened in the timeline, so, eh, the ages are AU, I guess. Also, dwarf ages are a little difficult...so yeah, I'm tryiiiing! Sorry! :) In this part, Dis is about 13 (5/6-ish human-wise), Frerin is 38 ( 12/13 human-wise) and Thorin is 43 (14/15-ish). Sooo, here we go!

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**Daughter of Durin**

Chapter 1

Dis had the unfortunate curse of being quite fond of heights. It was not a very dwarven interest, to say the least; the folk of the mountain were meant to keep their feet on the ground, where sturdy, sensible people belonged. But the youngest of the royal family could not be kept from climbing. Pillars, trees, columns, thrones, brothers, mother, father, grandfather: they were all fine, taller things that should be crawled up and then sat upon once you reached the highest point.

Her escapades drove her normally calm nursemaid Fra to tears. Especially the time the girl had been found perched on the shoulder of the statue of Gror the Gregarious, giggling as she clung to his braided stone beard at the height of three full grown male dwarves from the floor. Fra feared the wrath of Thrain and his sons, knowing they would be enraged if something should happen to the adored little royal moppet. Dis normally, well, often obeyed Fra, but sometimes the temptation to dash away from her nursemaid was too strong to ignore.

Such as today, when she discovered that walking the railings of Erebor's stone balconies was great fun.

Escaping from Fra had been simple enough. The nursemaid had been engaged in sewing and gossiping with one of Dis' mother's handmaids. Dis was supposed to be playing with her pair of golden toy ponies, but she had grown bored of her play things and found the open door too enticing.

It hadn't taken her long to find a lonely balcony that overlooked one of the great caverns of Erebor. The city was enormous, and to Dis, the tunnels and halls seemed endless. Beneath this balcony, there was a walkway that led on the Room of Kings, where her grandfather would hold court. From her place sitting between the railing posts, legs over the edge, she could watch the comings and goings of great ladies and lords, many of whom were her kin.

After a while, she glanced up at the wide balcony railing above her head. Nearby, the stone of the mountain jutted out somewhat, providing a way to get onto the railing. If she could climb up to the railing, she could see even better, and she would have been higher than she had ever been before. She'd be like a mountain raven, perched in the boughs of a pine tree. And she did so like the ravens!

Scampering over to the wall, she had hiked her skirt up, scurried up the stone and pulled herself onto the railing. If she stretched her arms out to her sides, the railing would have been just as wide as the length from fingertip to fingertip. Pleased at her accomplishment, she marched down the length of the railing and then sat cross-legged in the middle of it, looking out over the domain of her family. Closing her eyes, she listened to the familiar sounds of Erebor: the deep, warm voices and hearty laughter echoing in the halls, the distant steady beat of metal on stone and of smithies at work, the music of harp and rum, flute and fiddle that was ever-present.

When she opened her eyes again, she was delighted to spot two familiar dark-haired figures on the walkway below. Thorin and Frerin were coming from the throne room, talking with each other. Frerin laughed at something Thorin said and punched him in the shoulder. Thorin responded by shoving Frerin then grabbing him by the shoulders and jostling him playfully while Frerin flailed and protested.

Dis absolutely loved her brothers with every inch of her small self, even if they could be annoying sometimes. While her grandfather, father and mother were almost always busy with the details of running a kingdom and caring for the dwarven folk, Thorin and Frerin were often there for her to spend time with. Thorin liked to escape outdoors and roam the mountainside, often taking his bow with him so he could hunt, and he didn't mind taking her as well. She always took the chance to walk the forest paths with him, often dashing ahead to find something interesting to bring back to him, though she knew she couldn't go too far from him. Thorin was very clear: she had to stay within seeing distance, or he wouldn't take her anymore.

Frerin was more content to stay inside the mountain, but he liked his forge much better than standing by grandfather's throne. He enjoyed making things, and he was always working on "unnatural projects," as their father called them. Things that exploded or ran on coal or did stuff with steam or water. Most of the time, she wasn't allowed to go into Frerin's forge since everyone was rather certain Frerin would blow it up one day on accident. Sometimes she would sneak in there anyway and try to understand as Frerin explained about this piece of metal or another and how they worked together until someone, usually Thorin, found her. He was awfully too good at finding her… Rarely did she understand a thing Frerin was saying about his inventions, but it she liked the colors and how cogs and gears could go with each other. And they were fun to play with when he let her hold them.

Excited now to see her brothers, Dis stood up on the railing and waved both her arms over her head. "Thorin! Frerin!" She beamed, bouncing a bit on her toes. Maybe they couldn't hear her. They did look so small from the railing. She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Thooorin!"

Thorin was the first to look up, and Dis frowned when the smile fell from his face and his eyes grew as wide as her fists. His gaze locked on her, he threw out his arm and slammed it into Frerin's chest, forcing him to stop in the middle of the walkway.

Frerin jerked back with a curse that Mother wouldn't have liked and rubbed at his chest. "Thorin, what—"

Thorin nodded his head toward Dis, and he looked sort of like he was in pain. Dis waved at Frerin as he looked up and stared at her with a similar expression. Oh, good, she had gotten their attention! They did have an odd look about them, though.

"Hello!" she said cheerily.

"Dis!" Frerin stretched his arms out toward her though he was very far away below her. It wasn't like she was going to jump to him from all the way up here. "What are you doing?"

"Saying hello," she replied. She tilted her head to the side, causing one of her black braids to brush across her cheek. "What're you doing?"

"Dis, get down from there!" Thorin barked, taking a step forward. His face was strangely pale and angry.

He didn't sound happy, and she wasn't entirely sure why until she remembered a talk they had had just last week where he had told her that she wasn't supposed to climb anything else and that something nasty called consequences would happen if she did it again. Dis drew away from the edge of the railing and looked around. Oh. It hadn't really occurred to her that this was climbing…was it?

"Get down now!" Thorin bellowed, and Dis flinched back. Thorin had never shouted at her before. She couldn't even remember if he had ever raised his voice at her, though she had heard him yell at plenty of people who angered him. Mother called him the bear... Hot tears sprang to her eyes as she realized something terrible.

Thorin was mad at her.

Sniffling, she ran back down the railing toward the wall, putting her hands up over her ears when Thorin and Frerin yelled something at her from below. She wasn't supposed to cry, only babies cried, and she wasn't a baby anymore. But Thorin had never been angry at her before, and her chest and her tummy hurt since he was. And now Frerin was yelling too…she had never felt so bad in her life.

Scrambling down from the railing, she took off down the hallway, opposite of the direction of the room where she had left Fra. She just wanted to get away from Thorin and Frerin and hide so they couldn't find her. Maybe if she hid, they'd forget they were angry.

Wiping at her eyes, she raced down the hallways, taking quick turns and nearly tumbling down stairways. Once, when she ran into someone's knees, she roughly pulled herself away from the person that reached out to steady her and kept running.

She came to the statue of Ona the Orc-slayer and threw herself into the small space between the base of the statue and the wall. Back there, tucked away from everyone else, it was easier to forget that she was too old to be crying and easier to remember the way Thorin had roared at her. Sobbing, she pressed her hands into her face and curled up behind the statue. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, hidden in the folds of her own skirts behind the feet of the great dwarven warrior.

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A pair of hands wrapping around her waist woke her up, but she was too startled and sleepy and the touch was too familiar to fight back against as she was lifted from the floor. Turned over and then pulled close to a broad, blue-vested chest, she looked up blearily at Thorin as he pushed her disheveled hair back from her face. His eyes softened, and he cupped her cheek in his rough palm.

"You're impossible. What am I supposed to do with you, Dis…"

As she blinked, the memory of him yelling at her came back fully as did that twisty feeling in her tummy. Giving a cry, she arched her back and tried to get out of his arms, but it was a pointless attempt. He merely tightened his grip and put a hand to her back, holding her closer.

"Hey, what's the matter with you?" Thorin said, frowning, "Dis! Stop it."

"You're mad me!"

His brow furrowed, and he held her away from him as she wriggled and fought. "I am not! So quit your squirming, or I'm going to drop you on accident."

Dis stopped trying to escape and accepted her fate by going limp, laying doubled over Thorin's hands. She addressed the air, feeling quite forlorn. "You are too mad at me." She kicked her legs a little. "You yelled."

"I think I had a good reason for it. You know you're not supposed to be climbing anymore." When she stayed quiet, Thorin flipped her over and knelt down on one knee. He set her on the floor, and as soon as his fingers released her, she darted back from him, hiding behind the statue's leg with one hand on the cold stone. Thorin frowned, his eyes dark with hurt, but Dis didn't move from her spot. "Don't be like that."

"Don't yell at me."

Thorin frowned and sat down, his legs splayed out in front of him and his arms braced behind him against the floor. "I'm not yelling at you right now."

"Thinking about it," Dis accused as she sat down too, mostly hidden by the statue. She wasn't really afraid of Thorin, but she was upset about the shouting. And then there were the 'consequences,' when did those come?

"Not really," he snorted. He leaned forward. "Don't you want to come out from behind there? There might be cobwebs and spiders."

Dis jerked away from the wall and looked around for spider webs and little creepy crawlies that liked to sneak around and bite. When she didn't find any, she lifted her chin in the air and leaned out so she could glare at him properly. "Nope. There're not. It's nice here, and I like it." She leaned back against the leg of the statue and wrapped her arms around herself.

"Fine, stay there."

"I will!"

"Good."

For a while, they were both quiet, and Dis tightened her arms around herself. She wanted to get out from behind the statue and tackle Thorin and then ride on his shoulders as they went to go find Frerin, but she didn't think he'd want to right now. Besides, she didn't want to play with him anyways, he was mean. Instead, she toyed with the silver tassel on her long blue hood, flicking the tiny chains and wrapping them around her fingers.

"She's a tall lady, isn't she?"

What? Dis poked her head out so she could see Thorin. He was leaning back on his hands now, looking up at the dwarven warrior's statue. She towered above them, her massive mace held in front of her, scarred face ferocious and high above them. "She wasn't that tall."

"But the statue is, isn't it?" He gestured toward the top of it. "If you took Frerin and Father and Grandfather and I and set each of us one on top of each other, we wouldn't even be tall enough to offer Lady Ona a handkerchief for her stately nose."

Despite herself, Dis giggled. The image of the males of her family all stacked upon each other was too funny, especially when she imagined her royal grandfather at the top, waving a handkerchief at the statue and demanding that she blow her massive nose this instant. "Statues don't need handkerchiefs."

Thorin looked surprised, his eyebrows rising. "No? What do they use when they need to blow their nose?"

"Statues don't blow their noses!" Dis exclaimed, smiling, "They're made of stone. No sneezes." She crawled out from behind the base of the statue and got to her feet. She craned her head back but still she couldn't see the top of the statue. It was enormous.

"I'll have to remember that." Thorin pointed up at the statue. "Do you see Ona's elbow, way up there?"

"Mhmm." Dis walked over and stood beside Thorin so she could maybe see what he saw. Even while he was sitting and she was standing, she was still shorter than him. "What about it?"

"If I had to say so, I think that's how far off the ground you were when you were on the balcony."

"Oh."

"Come here." Thorin's hand caught her wrist gently, and she didn't try to get away as he pulled her into his lap. She leaned back against him and looked up at the statue. That was very high. It hadn't seemed like it was that far away when she had been on the railing, but Thorin wasn't a liar. She felt his chest rumble behind her as he sighed and wrapped an arm around her. "There's a reason I asked you not to climb anymore, and it's the same reason for why I shouted at you earlier."

Dis poked at the big silver ring he wore and spun it around his finger, avoiding looking up at him. "Why?"

"If you fell from that height, you…you would almost certainly die." His arm tightened around her. "And placing yourself in that kind of danger is absolutely unacceptable behavior."

She didn't completely understand what it meant to die, only that people who did die didn't come back from it, but it seemed like whatever it was, it upset Thorin greatly. Dis pushed his arm away so she could turn and look up at him. His blue eyes were dark and on the statue above them, a tight and unyielding frown on his face. She remembered how he had looked earlier, when he had seen her on the railing. Gently, she patted his bearded cheek, getting his attention. "Don't be scared, Thorin."

He glanced down at her. "Don't give me reason to be scared, Dis."

"M'sorry…"

"But you won't promise to not do it again, will you?"

Dis bit both of her lips and stared steadily up at him, refusing to answer since she didn't want to promise. Climbing was too much fun for her to willingly give it up, even if that was what Thorin asked of her. "Maybe…maybe I'll only climb littler things? Like trees?"

Thorin sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Only when someone's there with you, like me or Frerin. And they need to be small trees. Very small trees."

"Or Thorins!" she exclaimed, latching onto his arm. She pulled herself up onto his shoulder, catching her foot in the crook of his elbow and then putting it in his hand as he lifted it to give her some help. Perched on his shoulders, she hugged her arms around his head, resting her cheek against his dark hair. "I like climbing Thorins."

He laughed. "I suppose that's all right, sometimes." As he stood up, he tickled her side, making her jerk and giggle and bat at his hand. "Come, bird. Let's go find Frerin. Last I heard, he was going to look for you in the kitchens. Though maybe he was going to look for honey cakes instead…"

Dis grinned. "Ooo, honey cakes!"

"I'm not sure if climbers are allowed to have honey cakes…" He nodded. "I think that might be a suitable consequence."

So that was a consequence! What a terrible, horrible thing. "Aww…"

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**A/N:** I imagined young, pre-angst Thorin to be more light-hearted than his older self, so if he seems a little OOC right now, hopefully it's only because he's just a youngin! ^_^ This story will hopefully update every week or so; I'm going to try and keep it and my other long Hobbit story updating regularly! :)


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